


When All You Have Is A Spear

by Ononymous



Series: Undertale Anniversary Requests 2020 [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Undertale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26771518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ononymous/pseuds/Ononymous
Summary: Most monsters have long been resigned to their confinement beneath Mount Ebott, accepting their lot in life. But every generation has a few never-say-die types, who have tried to defy fate. Over the centuries every nook and cranny has been explored, every direction attempted. Up, down, left, right, north, west, Z-minus 10000 meters, clockwise, thataways... all failed. The Barrier is absolute, and only the Void could offer relief.But what if trying different directions is the wrong approach? What if you tried a direction... but tried it really hard?
Series: Undertale Anniversary Requests 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924747
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	When All You Have Is A Spear

_[N-nani?! (Translator's note: W-what?!) But Mew-kun, you can't have ice cream for breakfast! What would Bow-chan say?]_

The background noise of the laboratory, surveillance monitors, instruments beeping more urgently than one would imagine - which was the point, to make the facility look like the center of the action, and busier than it truly was - the soft mechanical whirring of the stairs to the upper level, were comfortably drowned out by the escapades of a bubbly cat girl learning about the true meaning of friendship. As she watched this endearing life journey, Doctor Alphys used her fork to swirl the bottom of the bowl she held, trying to gather up the last few noodles of her lunch.

"Mmm, I need to l-let the sauce absorb more next time. I was t-too impatient."

Washing the noodles down with the last of her soda, she paused Mew Mew, scurried over to the sink and recycling bin to deposit the remnants of the meal, then slipped her lab coat back on and walked over to her work bench. There were far fewer instruments giving exciting-but-irrelevant reports here. They got in the way of a project she really felt was making progress. Before the innocuous black slab in the middle of screwdrivers and soldering equipment, a small voice recorder lay on the desk, which Alphys picked up.

"Journal entry, P-project Gamma-Epsilon-Tau, entry seventeen: Propellant/Air intake r-ratio finally stabilised. Sidenote, also got h-hole in ceiling patched. Anticipate more controlled lift, able to maintain midair p-position absent significant drift or ascent. Experiment imminent. Expect results to be very interesting." She pocketed the recorder. "T-testCam?" The nearest security camera swivelled on her position. "Record."

A red light blinked on the camera. Alphys was live. Mostly to protect from a misfire, but also so her face wouldn't be visible, she took a mask from the test, put it on, retreated several paces and pulled out a device with, among other buttons, a large red button, accompanied with an elaborate digital display.

"Test f-flight twelve, controlled altitude attempt n-number three. Contact." She pressed the button.

_ERROR: No device acknowledged in range._

It took about fifteen seconds before Alphys, half expecting to call another handyman to repair her roof, noticed the red readout on the device. Lifting the mask, she looked back and forth from the controller to the slab on the desk. It remained entirely inert, not moving at all. She tried again.

_ERROR: No device acknowledged in range._

"H-huh. End recording."

The camera obeyed, returning to its standard view of the room. For a moment she thought to check the controller's batteries, before remembering that if it could give a readout that wasn't the problem. The receiver must be blocked. Or damaged. That was probably it, she'd salvaged it from test flight eleven to save time. But her pre-experiment tests hadn't shown any problems at the time. Not to worry, she had plenty of spares, and everyone still trusted it was important for breaking the barrier. In truth it was important for keeping her sane from lack of progress on that front. And the stress of what lay below.

She picked up the slab, looking for the dark red eye that would have received the controller's signal. It was nowhere to be found. That didn't make sense, she'd laid out the experiment before lunch. Components like that didn't get up and walk away. At least not yet, that would depend on the research she was building on from Mu-Epsilon-Tau-Tau-One. Other curious details about the slab soon appeared. It was entirely smooth. No telltale seems to indicate the ability to rearrange itself. Such technology was theoretically possible, her predecessor - she scratched the back of her head - had managed it, but she hadn't mastered the trick.

"This isn't my test phone," she finally concluded.

But then whose was it? And where was the test? She touched the screen of the mystery phone. A lock screen with a pot of boiling spaghetti appeared as its wallpaper, instead of her standard wallpaper of Mew Mew's magic wand. Perplexed now, she studied the picture in detail. The "boiling" spaghetti was nearly on fire instead, the hob was turned well beyond the maximum, and nearly all the water had boiled away. The tiles of the kitchen this was going on in looked common enough, but then at the very edge of the picture, she saw a vital clue: The hilt of what had to be an enormous sword. It was a hilt she knew too well. She'd read the excessively gruesome and violent comics it had originated in, long before it developed a softer side as a result of cataclysmic upheavals in the comic's world. And she'd fabricated a replica. She knew where that replica was.

"Oh no..."

* * *

"Dum dee dum... Oh, howdy Undyne!"

The Captain of the Royal Guard, taking care not to tread on the flowers, halted her circumnavigation of the throne room. "Oh, hello As- Asgore, sire." She snapped a salute.

"Oh, at ease, captain, you know that by now." Asgore got up from his knees and the soil he was weeding out. "Is something wrong? Does the guard barracks pantry need more biscuits?"

Undyne saluted again. "No sir, we're good for a fortnight."

"Ah, wonderful. We can never be too prepared, can we, Undyne?"

"No, Asgore," she emphatically agreed.

"Well, if you've come for a cup of tea, unfortunately I just finished a pot." He tilted his head towards the small table by the throne. "But I can go fill up the pot to brew another."

"Don't worry sir, I was just on my way to the barrier."

"The barrier?" Asgore frowned. "Why?"

"Uh, to remind myself of what we're fighting for. For freedom. And also in case the humans try a frontal assault. Attacking us at our strongpoint is exactly the kind of doublebluff trickery they'd do!"

He sighed and shook his head slightly. "Go ahead, Undyne. I will have a fresh pot ready by the time you're done."

"Thank you, sir!"

Snapping a third salute, Undyne cleared the flower patch and left the throne room. The cool caverns were a relief, given how warm the sunlight of the throne room had been. It wasn't as harsh as Hotland, but it had a pervasive approach, like by the time it was uncomfortable it would be too late. She wondered if that was what they called 'Summer'. She wasn't the only one uncomfortable in it, she saw Asgore didn't have his armour on under his cloak, only vest and trousers.

A few twists and turns down the corridor, and she came face to face with her quarry. The eerie light of sun filtered through ancient magicks. The sound of howling wind even though no sign of a breeze could be felt on her dry scales. The barrier, the great seal, the guarantor of entropy, the bane of us all.

"Well no longer!"

"You say something, Undyne?" Asgore's voice echoed.

"Uh, no sir!" she called back.

"Okie dokie."

Returning her attention to the implacable foe, Undyne pulled out a black slab from her pocket. An image of a magic wand appeared on the screen. This was it. Right arm outstretched, a blue spear flashed into existence. Holding the phone in her left hand, she never felt more sure.

"Go, phone!"

Nothing happened.

"Fly!"

Once again, nothing happened.

"Up, up and away, phone!"

This time, nothing happened.

"Go! Go phone go! Up! Ascend! Yip yip! ...please?" For a change, nothing happened. " _NGAH!_ " She threw her spear at the cavern wall, where it promptly vanished. "Stupid piece of junk, how do you work?!"

"With this."

Undyne spun round. Alphys stood at the end of the corridor, controller in her hand. A green readout displayed _COMPATIBLE DEVICE IN RANGE, PAIRED_.

"Oh, hey there Doc!" The spear vanished like it was evidence of wrongdoing. "I was just, uh..." 

"Stealing ex-experimental equipment!" Alphys stepped forward, yellow snout up in Undyne's blue face. "What were you thinking, C-captain?! What if that device blew up?! You could have k-k-killed yourself! Or the King!" 

Undyne held up her hands, leaning back from Alphys' aggressive posture. "Woah woah, Doc, Alphys, I was just... speeding up your tests, is all." 

"My tests?!" Alphys wondered where this intensity came from, but it didn't stop her. "The test I set up m-might have let the device be used to hold a position in midair. What test did y-you possibly think you would pass with it?!" 

Undyne's eye widened in surprise that it wasn't obvious. "Getting past, the barrier, duh!" 

"The b-barrier?" Alphys looked past Undyne as if she only noticed the barrier for the first time. "What does that have to do with a jetpack?" 

"Well I know we can't just fly over it, before you ask. When I was in school, there was a smug bird in my class I made a bet with, that he couldn't fly over it. There was a fissure in the roof of Snowdin, I was so sure he'd find out for us. And he did. I won the bet, his bandages came off after a week and I only got detention for two. Hah!" 

Alphys slowly withdrew from Undyne's personal space. "So... so w-what does that have to do with this?" 

"I learned something important that day: Direction doesn't matter. North, South, East, West, Up, Down. There's no sneaking past it. No clever trick. When we break the barrier, we gotta face it head on. That's what I'm doing today. Direction isn't our problem: Amount of force applied is!" 

Her tail instinctively curled around her. "...you want to r-ram the barrier?" 

"I'm not gonna ram it, that's just stupid." 

"Oh, that's a relief, I thought-" 

"I'm gonna stab it!" 

"S-s-s-stab?!" 

"Hell yeah!" Undyne summoned another spear. And a grin. "Flying into the barrier at full speed. Focusing all my momentum down to a point. I'm determined, my spear is the needle that will pierce-" 

" _Are you crazy?!_ " 

Undyne's boast was stopped dead, her spear dropped to the floor. Alphys advanced on her once again, forcing her to step back. The passion that erupted out of nowhere had her undivided attention. 

"You're thinking with physics! Physics are important, y-yeah, it's why we don't float off the planet unless we w-want to. But this is magic! Magic tells physics to shut up, that it n-needs to train for a thousand years just to keep up. The barrier d-doesn't play by those rules. For physics to override magic... I m-mean, In theory you could apply enough force to break the barrier, b-but one monster with a jetpack won't do it! It would have to be the kind of explosion th-that threatens to kill everyone in the Underground anyway, and I d-don't think that's what Asgore has in mind. Magic must overcome magic, that's the only way I've found so far!" 

Her lecture finished, Alphys did not withdraw her stance this time, heavy breath pushing a lock of Undyne's flaming hair. The Royal Captain struggled to find the words to... she wasn't even sure. 'Anaerobic' was a good science word, she knew that much, but it probably wasn't really relevant. 

"Doc," she began, "I'm sorry. I just wanted to try... Something... So no-one else has to..." 

Both of them looked back at the corridor, where Asgore stood warming a teapot in his bare hands and thinking about what biscuits to offer his unexpected guests. Eyes met eye-and-patch, and a nod and a twitch of the fins confirmed what the yellow brow was wondering. Then to Undyne's surprise, Alphys took out her phone and summoned a helmet from its storage. 

"W-wear this at least," she said, "so you don't crack your skull." 

Undyne winked several times. "Huh? But you said this wouldn't work." 

"Yes I did." Alphys exasperation melted into a smile. "But you have a kn-knack for making me doubt the impossible. Might as well try." 

"Hell _**yes!**_ " 

Undyne swapped the prototype jetphone for the helmet, and began strapping it on, feeling her ponytail tickle the base of her neck. In the meantime Alphys was reprogramming the rocketry control function for what Undyne had in mind. It didn't take long, and soon she handed it back to Undyne, then took out her recorder. 

"Journal entry, P-project Gamma-Epsilon-Tau, entry eighteen: Audio only recording of flight attempt th-thirteen, Special Config Beta-One. C-captain Undyne, are you ready?" 

A third spear appeared in Undyne's right hand and its tip aimed at the barrier. "In your own time, doc!" 

"A-alright." Alphys held out the controller and took several steadying breaths. "Contact." 

She pressed the button. At once the jetphone unfolded from itself, adding to its apparent mass as if from nowhere. It leapt out of Undyne's hand, letting her grip her spear with both hands, and bonded with her back just as two large exhaust vents assembled themselves. With a roar to rival the howling wind, two large flames exploded from it. 

"Wow," said Undyne, "this feels really intenseohhereIgo _holycrapit'sfast-!_ " 

The blink of an eye might have missed the moment her feet left the ground. Alphys watched her streak across the cavern, then shut her eyes anticipating the crash. Or the crunch. 

Neither ever came. Just the continued clashing roars and howls. 

Opening her eyes again, she realised the engine hadn't cut out either, a good sign of not being crushed to pieces. Looking at the barrier itself, there was Undyne, suspended in midair as though from a wire. Alphys heard her shouts above the engine's roar, but couldn't make out what she said. She could guess there was a lot of cursing, however. The spear tip was level with Undyne's head, and made no further progress, but it wasn't like flying into a wall. Alphys was witnessing magic in action. The barrier didn't care about physics. It just cared about stopping you. There was no equal and opposite reaction, so Undyne just pushed against basically nothing, when the force of the jetpack should have squished her. At last the pack ran out of fuel, and Undyne fell three feet to the ground. The jetpack released itself from her back and began folding back down into a small slab. 

"Oh, Undyne!" Alphys hurried over, dialling her phone for bandages. "Are y-you okay?" 

"Gtv du th gn." 

"Huh?" 

Undyne lifted her head and spat out some dirt. "We gotta do that again! I mean, uh," she saw Alphys take her aggressive stance once more, "aw geez, looks like it didn't work." 

"...it w-was really cool, though," said Alphys. "Like in those human shows. And I actually l-learned something about the barrier. M-maybe that can help." 

"Yeah." Undyne got to her feet and brushed dirt off her clothes. "Yeah! My heart's still pounding! I wanna suplex something, you got a boulder handy? Oh, what about the spare throne-?" She felt a sharp pinch on her arm, and focused on Alphys once again. "Okay, okay, sorry, still on a high. Calming down now." 

"Good," said Alphys, "and, um... t-thanks for getting me to try something different." 

"Any time!" She slapped alphys on the back. "Now, how's about we both have tea with the King? Death defying stunts makes me thirsty!" 

"Um, what k-kind of biscuits does he have?" 

"Normally chocolate ones. Or on special occasions he has chocolate chip and hazelnut cookies. I don't eat too many, but they're nice as a treat!" 

**Author's Note:**

> Original Suggestion: Undyne attempts to jetpack to the surface
> 
> Pastebin Version: https://pastebin.com/RD4SYvsW
> 
> Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


End file.
